Death of Avicenna in Hamadan

1037

The Bukharan-born polymath who had written the Canon of Medicine and a vast philosophical encyclopedia died at about fifty-seven after years of hard drinking and harder political service. His tomb still stands in Hamadan, a pilgrimage site for Iranian students and a monument to medieval Islam's scientific high noon. His synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy with Islamic thought shaped both Eastern and Western intellectual traditions for centuries.